A flurry of Federal Reserve moves and an 11th-hour bailout of the auto industry only served to reinforce the conviction held by our panel of market experts that the economy is experiencing its worst recession in decades.

Thomas Lee, chief U.S. equity strategist at J.P. Morgan (JPM), reflected a relatively broad consensus when he said stocks won't see a lasting rally during the first half of next year, but should improve in the second half of 2009. The present, he wrote Wednesday, remains rough sledding.

"We are in uncertain times as the Great Recession of 2008 is now in its 13th month and already looking to be the longest and by some measures the worst since WWII," he wrote.

Even though major stock indexes have rallied from their October lows, the S&P 500 was down 40% year-to-date through Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 35%, and the Nasdaq Composite, 41%.

"The U.S. recession that began in December 2007 is the longest and deepest since the one experienced in 1981-1982," Larry Adam, chief investment strategist for Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown, wrote in a December market commentary. "The acceleration in jobs lost, continued deleveraging, a reduction in exports, tight credit conditions, lack of confidence and declining consumer net worth will continue to stifle economic growth for at least the next two quarters."

Merrill Lynch (MER) chief economist David Rosenberg wrote Tuesday that what we're experiencing is far from a garden-variety recession, and investors should expect the downturn to last at least 20 months. "As it stands, we do not see a light at the end of the tunnel."

Tobias Levkovich, Citigroup (C) chief U.S. equity strategist, took a more optimistic view -- at least on a relative basis -- as did Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, and Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab (SCHW) . No one, however, was popping champagne corks.

Sonders praised the Tuesday decision by the Fed to expand its balance sheet and slash a key short-term lending rate to near zero.

"The Fed is using everything in its arsenal to prod lending and risk-taking again in order to stabilize the economy. Not much has worked so far, but that won't last forever," she wrote.

Yardeni, who's been critical of the spotty interventionist efforts of the last days of the Bush administration, said government moves could have a positive short-term effect.

"Then again, there have been so many rescue plans and liquidity facilities coming out of Washington over the past year that investors have become totally jaded about them," he wrote on Dec. 15.

That should fade by the second half of next year, according to Levkovich.

"Investors expect a fairly robust rebound in 2009, with a clear domestic bias," he wrote on Dec. 15. "Furthermore, nearly 40% expect the U.S. to outperform other stock markets, roughly 10 points above the response level seen a year ago."

And if that doesn't happen, there's always room to follow the lead of Gordon Fowler, chief investment officer of Glenmede, an institutional investment-management firm in Philadelphia.

"As the year comes to a close and while others will be writing up their views on 2009, I have decided to casually skip ahead and start thinking about 2010. Now, you may take this as a sign that 2009 is going to be such an awful year that I am merely trying to avoid the pain. There is some truth to that," he wrote in a Tuesday note. "The horrible returns of 2008 came as a result of the perception that we would be mired in a fairly deep recession through most of 2009. Hence, as we plan for 2009, we really need to ask ourselves what the condition of the economy will be in 2010."